Rubbermaid Turtle Shells

One would not imagine that a rubbermaid container, or as we call them "transport boxes", could be used as a refuge from the cold and the rain. However, these containers were our saving grace during the much awaited three-day Mini-Pit. The weather in early March delayed the project to a point where it could not be delayed any longer. A weather window (looked marginal at best) gave us an opportunity to go out and try to catch every shark in the North Sound. This allows us to get a general idea of how the shark population is doing before new pups are dropped off by their mothers in April and May. Lemon Shark mothers drop a litter of pups every other year and return to the same place they were born.Three teams set gillnets at different locations and a "tagging boat" was stationed at a large, central pen in the North Sound. Each night the nets were set for twelve hours and the nets were constantly watched with only 15 minutes between each check. The first night we caught 19 sharks and had ideal weather for gillnetting with warm weather, low wind, and high water visibility. The second night was cold and windy and the final night made me feel as if I was part of the "Deadliest Catch". As expected, our catches decreased with five sharks and three sharks on nights two and three, respectively.

In order to get out of the cold we used what we had on the boat to create protection from the wind. We started off building a wall using dry boxers (coolers) and transport boxes (rubbermaid containers), but this arrangement had to be broken down and rebuilt before and after every check. After dinner was delivered at about 1AM on the second night we eventually forfeited the idea of creating a wall and fended for ourselves by using the rubbermaid containers as "turtle shells". As low tide approached, we were unable to drive he boat to check the net and we had to walk-check the net. As a boat we tried to stay as dry as possible and decided to do two checks per person and then have a break. With three people on the boat, this allowed about a 2-hour break in between your checks and provided a little time to get a nap.

After my last check at 0430 in the morning I passed out under my turtle shell to awake in a daze thinking everyone on my boat had abandoned me.

When I woke up on the bow of the boat, I was delirious did not see anyone on my boat and thought that a mangrove in the distance was my two other crew members kneeling down to take a shark out of the net. Trying to gather my senses, I noticed a slight movement from the bench seat and was amazed that the lab manager, Emily, had squeezed in the bench seat and used the lid as a block from the wind. I then noticed Steve who had fit himself into an "egg " formed by two rubbermaid containers. Thankfully the wind died down as the second day came to and end as I watched a fantastic sunrise come over the mangroves. The old adage "red sky in the morning, sailor's warning" came true on the final night and made for an unpleasant experience.

Another Day in the Office

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Blog to follow, but enjoy the video for now!

A Shark's Perspective

It has been two months since flying over Bimini and setting eyes on the island that I have grown attached. My juvenile fascination of sharks has turned into passion--ironically for juvenile lemon sharks. As I face the final month of this experience, I am eager to build on the knowledge I have already gained while encountering more and more sharks.I am excited to explore more ways to get involved in research and conservation in Florida so that I can continue to be around these amazing animals.

In preparation for a new volunteer, we spent half of yesterday turning the lab upside down and cleaned the lab (don't think the lab only gets cleaned once a month, it gets cleaned everyday).Everything, and I mean everything inside and outside was cleaned. Every nook and cranny in the kitchen, bleaching the kitchen chairs, raking the back beach, washing and waxing all of our vehicles, and washing the dogs are just to name a few.
We finished before lunch and were able to take the second half of the day off to do what we wanted around the island. I took the opportunity to rekindle my love for photography and spent some time taking pictures in the pens and of the mangroves behind the lab. I wanted to experiment with my underwater housing and I got some pretty good shots from a "sharks perspective". The last picture is a pretty cool piece of driftwood that is on our back beach.

French Film Crews and Drunk Sharks

This week has started off with a little bit of excitement to add to the fact that we have been working for nine straight days. We were supposed to have three film crews coming to the lab this week, but one backed out for some reason. The crew that started filming on Monday is from France and they are here to make a documentary about Bimini with a focus on the eco-tourism that is developing on the island. From the information I have heard, they are working for the equivalent of the Travel Chanel in France. With any of the big events that go on at the lab, Dr. Gruber (the founder of sharklab and world-famous shark expert) was sure to be at the lab. The shooting yesterday focused on our research as they created scenes that showed us pseudo-catching a shark, a semi-realistic operation for attaching an external transmitter, and shots of the shark swimming past a fake SUR. Although the science behind the shooting was not realistic, it conveys the focus of our work. Unfortunately I was not able to help out with the filming or stick around for much of the shooting because I had to go out into the field. However, I was able to hear the radio conversations as Doc followed suit with many of the stories I have heard by orchestrating every move the staff and the film crew made. Today, the film crew focused on the work with the Bimini Boa being done on the island, but they will be back tomorrow to film life at the lab and on the island. This means they will be taking a trip with us to karaoke night at the beach club......should be interesting.

One of my favorite activities as the lab is gill-netting because it allows us to handle sharks and do direct work with them in the field. Our focus today was to do stomach eversions with the sharks in the North Sound to see how their diet is changing due to the mangrove destruction. Recently large amount of dirt has been filled into the sound while more mangroves are being destroyed and causing the sharks to shift more towards the middle of the sound. The area we worked in was traditionally the best spot in the entire sound to catch a large number of juvenile lemon sharks. Both of the sharks caught today were caught in the last section of net closest to the middle of the sound while normally most of the sharks are caught in the section closest to the mangroves. We can not say for sure that this is directly caused by the mangrove destruction, but we can show that the sharks have shifted their home ranges. This relationship has also been shown by the recent tracking data as many of the sharks from the western part of the sound (construction) are shifting more towards the middle. Next week we will be able to better determine where all the sharks are living when we try to catch all the sharks in the north sound during a 3-day long mini-PIT. This will also be used to determine the current population before the females return to have their babies starting in April.

In the picture above I am helping to revive a lemon shark after a stomach eversion. In order to wake them back up, water must be rushed past the gills using a bilge pump to dilute the anesthetic that is on the sharks gills. The bilge pump is tilted up every so often to aerate the water that is rushing past the shark. In the other picture the shark is being "taken for walk" to make sure he is trying to swim. The sharks are in an almost drunken state when they wake up and often will nose plant into the sand before they come to their senses and swim normally. After he is able to swim, he is put into a holding pin for 24-hours and released the next day.

Floaterloaf

*DISCLAIMER* If you have a weak stomach or get grossed out easily, you might want to skip this blog.

If you've ever pondered what five months of waste looks like when it fills a septic tank, I can give you a simple description........meatloaf.....or as I like to call it floaterloaf. Yes, yesterday everyone at the lab participated in the semi-annual event with the g-rated name-- "poop pit." With the poor weather on Wednesday we got a head start by digging a large hole that would soon be the new home to five months worth of floaters.

The day started off with everyone rummaging through the charity bin full of clothes to put together a good looking outfit for the much anticipated festivity. The guys went all out and came up with some good looking regalia. The shorts i found were a little too big for me and I was not about to risk the possibility of ruining a belt so I decided to rig suspenders using fishing line. The suspenders served a duel purpose by keeping the shorts from around my ankles and adding comic relief to the event.

The uncovering of the tank was like sliding giant stones off a tomb filled with golden treasure, yet our jewel was more of a brown color sprinkled with a hint of yellow. Thankfully there was a strong wind and I was slightly congested since the initial smell was quite strong (of course I was one of the ones who had to pull the lid off). Lines formed and the solid layer was removed with shovels and buckets.

After the icing was taken off the top, we were able to use a trash pump to pump the saltwater and other liquids into our newly dug swimming pool. Wanting to get the full experience of the acclaimed day I helped Jim manage "the business" end of the pump. As the chocolate fountain rained out of the hose I could only laugh at the situation. After the septic was emptied the hole was filled back in with sand; the job was done and we got the rest of the day off. Despite the ideal weather yesterday, I can not imagine doing this in August or September when the heat is brutal and the wind is minimal. Thankfully I won't be around for that, but it was an aspect of the sharklab that I will never forget.

Hanging Out With a Legend

There should have been a small-craft advisory in the north sound this week with a two to three foot chop caused by the gale-forced winds blowing from the south. There truly is a difference in the temperature of the wind when the wind is blowing from the south compared to the cold wind blown in from the northwest. Ready for the next season of Deadliest Catch, I suited up in high-visibility foul-weather gear courtesy of PIP and was brighter the ball in times square. Despite looking ridiculous walking around the lab and blinding people with my glow, I like to think that someone could see me from space. After a soggy ride to the north sound, tracking was nearly impossible with the strong wind and constant chop on the water. The hydrophone popped out of the water with each swell as the tracker sitting on the bow nearly slid off with the roll of each wave. Needless to say neither team collected much tracking data this week.

The weather broke on our day off and although it was not as exciting as the staff's day off (baited in five hammerheads) it was a memorable day. We called upon the Bimini fishing legend Bonefish Ebbie to drive us around and see more of Bimini from the water. We started the day off on the northwest side of the island looking for dolphins to swim with. After about an hour or so of cruising around with no signs of any large pods of dolphins we decided to snorkel one of the historic sites on Bimini. We moored up at a site called the Bimini Road which is thought to be the road to Atlantis. The road is a mile long stretch of rock that was formed in a north/south direction along the coast. It was a really nice snorkel and we saw eels, nurse sharks, lobsters, and a wide variety of fish.

After about an hour in the water we packed up and headed to the marina to pick up a box of squid to feed to the stingrays at Honeymoon Harbor. I have fed the stingrays at SeaWorld, but feeding stingrays in the wild is a lot more fun and some of them get a little up close and personal swimming all over you in search of the squid. While the feeding frenzy is going on, bonefish start swimming around as the eat the small pieces of squid floating around. Before I realized why Ebbie had asked for a squid, he was reeling a 3-4 pound bonefish by hand. There were no rods on the boat that day, but he had managed to use what he had laying around the boat to do what he does best and catch bonefish. He brought in at least three fish in the twenty minutes we fed the stingrays and had so much fun hooting and hollering as he caught each fish. Ebbie has been fishing in Bimini for bonefish since the 1970's and charters his boat daily hooking people into the one of the bahamas most prized game fish. He is a genuinely nice guy and shared his love for gospel music by singing to us all afternoon.

Shark Bait

Normally when you think of fishing in Bimini, you think of immense game fish like 1,000 pound tunas, gigantic swordfish, and large marlins. However, here at the sharklab we go fishing with the sharks in mind. In order to pull off all the long lines, shark dives, and hammerhead baiting, we need large amounts of bait. A single 24-hour longline set consists of 5 different lines,each with 15 gangions (hooks). Obviously you can do the math; we need 75 chunks of barracuda to go on all the gangions.

I was pumped last week to hear that I was assigned to go fishing for barracuda. I knew that we would have luck, but I didn't expect to seta sharklab record.......11 cuda in one day (really half a day). Around one set of rocks we caught at least 7 within an hour. At the end of one fight, I had a school of amberjacks circle the barracuda as I brought it to the boat. One took a big look at my barracuda but didn't go after it.As I look back on it, I wish I had left it in the water because I'm sure he would have been caught by one of the two trebble hooks on the lure as he went after the barracuda. As the end of the day neared, my roommate hooked into a fish that fought much different than the rest of the fish we caught that day. It had a strong initial run and then everything stopped and no line could be gained on the fish. We thought that the fish had rubbed the lure off and a rock. As we drove the boat towards the line, I was prepared to put my mask on and dive down and unhook the lure. Suddenly the fight was back on and up comes a nice sized grouper. We were amazed because the last thing we were expecting to catch while trolling shallow rocks was a grouper. Needless to say, it fed the entire lab the next night.

Although I like fishing for barracuda, I look out over the gulf-stream every morning and wish I had a chance go after the trophy game fish that frequent the waters no more than a mile from Bimini. Despite all I am learning down here, there is nothing I would rather do than go fishing. As we came in with the sunset I couldn't be happier.